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Wednesday, 12 December 2012

The Stanley Bailey No.1 smoothing plane was produced from 1869 to 1943 when it was dropped from the range, presumably because of the squeeze on resources brought about by WW2. They were never produced in large numbers so their comparative rarity makes them a favourite with collectors and they now command astonishing sums at auction.

Like the Stanley original, the Quangsheng No.1 has a 1-1/5" wide iron, a bailey pattern frog and no lateral adjuster. Sales volumes of these planes have naturally been lower than those for the full size bench planes and production of them ceased about a year ago. I was able to get a single one made as a special gift to thank a friend - possibly the only time a factory in China has produced one of anything!

Having come face to face with one I wished that I had ordered some while they were still being made. Three points in particular struck me:

They are perfectly suited for children and much easier for them to use than a block plane. Imagine how fast you would go off woodworking if you had to do all your planing with a 60-1/2 that is the size of a shoe box!

America is now a very much more wealthy nation than it was in the late 1800's and the American people are naturally interested in collecting the tools that their forbear's made. If I had a time machine and could go back to an 19th century tool shop I'd clean them out of mint boxed Stanley No.1's in a heartbeat! Now take a punt on where China is going to be in 100 years time.

If the original was in production for 74 years it must have been bought and used by someone, mint examples are thin on the ground, so the people who owned them must have used them.

Although they are no longer in regular production, we have managed to get a small batch of Quangsheng No.1's made. Whether this will happen again in the future is anyone's guess.

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

I have a curious relationship with knifemaking, I might do 15 minutes here and there, sometimes weeks apart, and then get a sudden rush of inspiration and can't stop for anything until I've seen the job completed. Today was one of those days.

There were a couple of useful tips that cropped up in the process, so I thought I share them. The first is using one of these great little cylindrical cork sanding blocks (above) that come with a free bottle of wine. The cork supports the abrasive giving evenly distributed pressure, you can also roll it slightly as you are working to find a fresh bit of grit without having to reposition the paper.

A problem that I came across when shaping the handle with rasps was how to get close enough to the liners and the tang without scratching them. Even using 3M Frecut sanding would still take a while, unless I used really coarse grits and then you are back to the problem of scratches. Instead I tried using a cabinet scraper which proved to be fast, controlled and didn't scratch up the metal anywhere near as badly.

The blade for this knife was made by Chris Grant, a long standing friend and very accomplished bladesmith. It was made from our laminated white paper steel using the stock removal method and then given one of his awesome heat treatments. I won't give away Chris's secrets but he can make steel do wonderful things. You could literally shave with this thing!

As this is going to be more of a working knife than Amelie I went for a slightly blockier handle shape, one bit that turned out really well was a tiny almost imperceptible thumb depression on the top of the blade, this gives a really nice grip for controlled woodworking cuts.

Well I guess that's about it, but I do have one last special surprise for Chris....

Wednesday, 21 November 2012

I must confess that we have been supplying the new version for a while now but I have resisted the temptation to
mention it until we had more stock on the way - sack cloth and ashes
for me later! Although we only have a small number on hand at present, rest assured there are
will be more arriving in time for Christmas.

So what's new?

First of all the position of the handle, on the newer version (at the front) the handle is tucked up much closer to the frog. Changing this is no small undertaking as it means making a whole new set of patterns that the plane bodies are cast from. The new position makes it easier to reach the depth adjuster on the back of the frog without altering your grip.

Personally I subscribe to the 'have the plane set correctly then approach the workpiece' school of thought so it has never really bothered me, but I know there are those who prefer to make depth of cut adjustments 'on the fly'.

The handle itself is now a little bit taller giving more room for the fingers, a little bit chunkier and with a more pronounced forward lean.

The No.6 remains my favourite size of bench plane, long enough to achieve accurately flat edges up to 6 feet, broad enough to tackle large surfaces and yet still of a manageable size to use for extended periods or with a shooting board.

Friday, 5 October 2012

Flatness is possibly one of the more widely misunderstood aspects of precision woodworking, by experienced and novice woodworkers alike. Most woodworking courses tend to start with sharpening and tuning - because you can't work without sharp well tuned tools. I would suggest that a better starting point might be a theoretical understanding of flatness, because with that you can better understand what you are aiming to achieve when sharpening and tuning - and save yourself bags of time and effort in the process.

Right, goatee beards and berets at the ready - let's bust some myths!

Perfectly flat! - BUSTED!

From an engineering perspective, absolute flatness is a conceptual state that is approached to within a given tolerance. Nothing has ever been made that is absolutely 100% flat, however we can get extremely close to it. Good quality reference surfaces like straightedges and surface plates will have a stated tolerance, the smaller the tolerance the closer the tool is to flat, straight, square etc. The smaller the tolerance gets, the more expensive it becomes to achieve.

It is worth mentioning that the tolerance on a straightedge is one of the factors that needs to be taken into account when expressing the measurement taken against it. Avoid buying cheap tools described as 'precision' but without a stated tolerance, you are genuinely better off with a banana. A straightedge with a 0.003" tolerance might sound impressively straight, but if you go to take a 2 thou measurement against it, you could be out by 75%. Would you buy a tape measure that gave you two feet plus or minus 18 inches?

I have scoured the suppliers for a straightedge that is both reasonably priced and sufficiently accurate and settled on the Bowers Metrology 465 Engineers Straightedge (same company group as Moore & Wright) which gives accuracy of 0.0005" over it's 500mm length and still comes in on the right side of £75 (at the moment).

Rub it on a flat thing. - PLAUSIBLE! (sometimes)

A common myth is that rubbing something on a big flat abrasive surface will automatically make it flat too. However, when you think about it, every slight variation in pressure as you move the object over the surface will have a cumulative effect. The flat surface prevents you from making it concave, so what this process actually achieves is altering the condition of the surface in the direction of convexity. If it was concave to begin with then you will indeed be making it flatter, if it was flat or even minutely convex then the only possible outcome will be greater convexity. Abrading on a larger abrasive surface is a useful technique, but only when it is understood and used appropriately to reduce concavity or intentionally introduce convexity.

When it comes to making wood flat with a hand plane we use 'stop shavings' or
shavings within the length of the workpiece to introduce very slight
concavity (equivalent to the depth of cut over the length of the sole).
These are followed by 'through shavings' that move us back in the
direction of convexity - too many through shavings and you will end up
with a convex workpiece. Although the tools are different and we are
cutting rather than abrading, the principles are exactly the same.
Approaching flatness from known concavity in a controlled manner.

Concavity can be introduced or increased by working the object over an abrasive surface that is smaller than itself. In the case of a chisel this can be achieved by working across the width of the stone, or if lapping a plane by using a piece of abrasive that is shorter than the sole. Once the surface is uniformly slightly concave it can then be worked on a larger abrasive surface to bring it back towards flat.

I've seen the light! - Plausible! (But it ain't a measurement)

Seeing light under a straightedge
or square is not a very satisfactory method of inspection because light
is subatomically thin. Take a bench plane that is flat to British
Standard of 3 thou on centreline for example. An optic fibre core has an
external thickness of 1/3 of one thou (that's the thickness of the tube
as well as the hole for the light inside it). In other words you could
stack eight optic fibres on top of each other and slide the lot through a
three thou gap. A feeler gauge
on the other hand gives you a definitive yes or no answer about whether
the gap is bigger or smaller than the thickness of the feeler. The only thing light can do is tell you whether or not you need to bother getting the feeler gauges out. In other words it's a quick initial check, seeing no light is an automatic pass, but seeing light only identifies a need for proper measurement.

A word about tolerances

Tolerances are usually expressed as 'X thou maximum total deviation on centreline' if you think of this as 'would an X thou feeler guage go under it?' you are using the appropriate numbers. They can also be expressed as +/- Y thou, this gives you the deviation up or down, so to check for it you would need a feeler gauge twice as thick as Y thou. You can also have unilateral tolerances that only allow deviation in one direction, for example =/- Z thou allows for a concavity of Z thou with no tolerance for convexity.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post them here and I will do my best to answer them. In part two we will get a little deeper into the specifics of tool tuning and sorting out some of those eBay horrors.

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

I'm not an antique tool collector (honest!) and I don't normally visit boot fairs, but last weekend my wife was invited to visit a local boot fair with a friend and on her return mentioned that there were a couple of stands selling old tools. I'm still not entirely sure why, fate, instinct perhaps, but after an hour or so of wrestling an irresistible urge to peruse the stalls, I gave in.

One plane in particular caught my eye, a type 11 Stanley low knob 5-1/2, the handle was cracked but everything was complete and original.

The stallholder then told me that he also had a No.7 in the car if I was interested, not a low knob but certainly another pre-war keeper. By this point it had started to rain and it was unfair to keep the poor bloke dithering while his stock got wet, so I asked him for a price on the planes and accepted his very reasonable offer. I can't stand all this haggling back and forth for the sake of a fiver - this is England after all, not Marakesh.

Having returned home I consulted the oracle of all things Stanley (Patrick Leach's Blood & Gore) and discovered that my instincts had served me well. The low knob 5-1/2 was indeed complete and correct and a gentle rub with a rag and some ProtecTool microcrystalline wax revealed the words 'Stanley, New Britain, Connecticut, USA' on the iron. The Patent marks and lack of a ring in the casting beneath the knob dated it to between 1910 and 1929 and the low knob placed it as pre 1920. Bingo, it could have been a period prop in Downton Abbey!

Whilst gently wiping the accumulated grime off the No.7 I noticed that it had various flecks of gloss paint on it. Why do so many planes get splashes of paint on them? Further inspection revealed that both sides of the frog were covered in orange paint, this was different though, if someone had dropped enough orange paint on the thing to cover the sides of the frog, then surely there would be signs of it elsewhere.

Back to the internet, which revealed that during a very brief period Stanley USA took to painting the sides of their plane frogs bright day-glow orange, then as quickly as they had begun they stopped. The plane is a type 15, which were only made for two years (1931-32). Orange frog type 15s are extremely thin on the ground and because No.7s aren't made in anything like the same volumes as smoothers and jack planes, this turned out to be a very rare beast indeed. The irons were not contemporary to the plane, but hey, how much luck can you expect in one day?

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Elmer's have been making adhesives for over 60 years and have become an iconic American brand.

The products are very safe, Elmer's started out making kids glue and remain the market leaders, so much of the brand marketing is child friendly and fun. The original Elmer's Glue-All is still available and the formulation is continuously being improved to include the latest advances in adhesive technology.

In 1975 Elmer's entered the woodworking market by introducing the first sandable fast-grabbing wood glue (aliphatic resin) combining enhanced strength from long chain polymers, the user friendliness of PVA and the grab of traditional hide glues in one product. Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Glue and the stronger, waterproof, stainable Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Glue Max (pictured above) are the modern descendants.

The firm continues to deliver market leading innovation and has recently introduced Elmer's Glue-All Max, an impressive low-foaming polyeurethane glue that gives you the massive multi-material sticking power of polyeurethane, but with considerably less mess.

Conveniently, the vacuum moulded
insert trays come in 65mm and 50mm depths. The 50mm stacking insert has a
skirt on the underside that covers the compartments of the one below. So you
can have any one of the ten 65mm inserts (B through K) on the bottom, and then the
appropriate number of stacking inserts (A) to make up the depth of the
systainer.

Systainer insert trays are ideal
for storing small items like screws and nails. If you use these inserts as designed and in
conjunction with one of the polystyrene covers that fits inside the lid you should be able to
hold the closed systainer upside down and shake it without any of the contents
getting mixed up.

Dividers

There are two types of systainer dividers,
the first is a simple version which slots together using cellarette partition
joints, these have the advantage that they can be disassembled and stored flat
when not in use.

The second type are permanently
assembled but have a skirt so that when they are stacked within the systainer they
effectively seal the compartments beneath.

The dividers for systainers 2, 3 and 4 are 7.5mm shy of full depth, so that they can be stacked in a bigger systainer. For example, you can fit systainer 2 and 3 dividers (or two systainer 2 dividers and a stacking insert tray) into a systainer 4 and still close the lid. Systainer 5 has a thicker X reinforcement moulded into the base, so you can have any one divider and then top up with stacking insert trays (e.g. Systainer 4 divider + 2 stacking insert trays).

Foam and Waffle pads

Another versatile way to use the
space inside systainers is to use foam pads and waffle pads. Each pad is 25mm
thick, the foam pads are compressible, the waffle pads are not. Waffle pads
(also known as ‘pick and pluck’ foam) are partially pre-cut into squares, so
you can remove squares to form a void in the shape of an object you wish to
store. If you want a more precise fit, the foam can also be cut using a hot
wire or scalpel.

Systainer toolbags are double
sided rigid boards with ballistic nylon pockets on both sides. They slot into the systainer toolbag guide, a
two piece frame that drops into the base and rear side of a systainer 4. You
can have any combination of four toolbags from a range of six configurations. If you are using them in a systainer 4 (as shown) the tools need to be no longer than the top of the board, if using a systainer 5 you have another 100mm which can be handy for files, rasps, longer chisels etc.

The Systainer office lid insert
converts your systainer into a briefcase with pockets for documents, diary,
pens and business cards. I now use a couple of plain foam inserts in the bottom of
the box to sandwich my laptop and prevent it from being scratched by the plug
on it’s power cable (again - ouch!)

Cartridge and Aerosol Inserts

These expanded polystyrene blocks
drop into the bottom of a systainer 4 or 5 to hold standard 70mm aerosols and 52mm
cartridges (sealants, adhesives, etc.) with spaces for nozzles.

Maxi and Mini Systainer inserts

There is an excellent multi-configuration
divider available for the maxi systainer, this can be used to partition the
space into equal or un-equally sized compartments. The maxi systainer dividers store flat when
not in use and because the leaves connect to the interior of the box as well as
each other, you can fit them individually if necessary. Three formats of
insert tray are available for mini systainers, perfect for storing drawing
equipment, small screws, sausage rolls, etc.

Sortainers

No analysis of the interior of
Systainers would be complete without mention of the tardis-like 4-drawer or 12-drawer Classic Sortainers. These come complete with subdividers that slot into the
drawers so you can organise the space within to suit your specific needs, and
labels to identify the contents.

Friday, 20 July 2012

Recently I have been indulging this penchant in
earnest, and as a result, in the past month we have added over 50 new products
to the Workshop Heaven website.

Rather than just reeling off a list of them, I
thought it would be much more fun to have a quiz.

Above are close-up pictures of twelve of the new
products. All you have to do is correctly identify all of them on the Workshop
Heaven website, then copy and paste the name of each product into an email with
'Shiny New Tools Quiz' in the subject line. Include your name and a contact number
and send it in to wshsales@workshopheaven.com to be entered into the free prize
draw.

This wonderfully smooth, fine textured timber is
increasingly hard to get hold of in large pieces. Ours is carefully and
selectively harvested by helicopter to preserve the surrounding environment.
The logs are quartered to remove all traces of the pith, which would otherwise
cause it to split, before being trimmed into the largest possible squares. The
wood is then gently air dried for a minimum of three years making it relaxed,
consistent and stable to work with.

Thursday, 7 June 2012

New from Narex, the popular 8882 range of mortice chisels are now available in imperial sizes as well as metric.

The isothermally hardened steel is the same as all the other Narex chisels and the chunky faceted beech handles are the same as those used on the metric Narex 8882 mortice chisels. The only thing that is different is the widths, which are correctly ground in true imperial widths to a
tolerance of about 6 thou (none of this rebranded 'metric equivalent' nonsense).

Thursday, 31 May 2012

Here at Workshop Heaven we are extremely proud to support our British tool manufacturers, and we don't need much of an excuse to crow about just how fantastic British-made tools and tooling are. So what better way to mark Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee than by making it even easier for people to experience for themselves the pleasure of working with some of the finest tools in the world.

The British toolmakers we choose to work with don't do cheap and cheerful, and they don't need cheesy marketing and hype, the only thing they are exceptionally, outstandingly brilliant at is making things properly. In some cases the specialist skills and know-how behind Britain's factory gates can only be found in one or two other places on the planet. In many cases these are handwork processes that have been handed down through apprenticeship and proven impossible to mechanise.

Until June the 5th we have 10% off all of the 861 British-made tools
that we carry, so whatever you choose to invest in, you can enjoy the
fact that it will have instantly out-performed your bank account for at
least the next three years - in advance!

Use discount code HMQ60 at the checkout

(Offer available while stocks last, expires June 5th 2012)

So whether you fancy treating yourself to some beautiful new Clifton planes, a set of hand ground Ashley Iles chisels or perhaps finding out for yourself just how incredibly smooth, stable and accurate a hand smithed Atkinson Walker circular sawblade is.....why not grab yourself a cuppa, and spend a few moments perusing some fine British workmanship.

Friday, 25 May 2012

This is Craig Sommerfeld, a really nice guy from Iowa who had a great idea and followed it through. in 1986 Craig was building some kitchen units for his home and needed a better way of securing his face frames to the units than using nails and filler. Being a tool and die maker, he fashioned himself a J shaped piece of aluminium with an angled steel tubular insert so that he could accurately and repeatably drill shallow diagonal 'pocket holes' to accept screws inserted from the inside of the cabinet. And so Craig's Jig - later to become the Kreg Jig, was born.

After enough, 'ooh now that's clever, can you make me one too?' comments, Craig took to making them during the week and then selling them at weekend woodworking shows. This is the graft bit, working shows is really hard work, but it pays dividends - as Craig says (if memory serves) "you get to look into peoples faces and see the moment when they get it, answer their questions and really understand what they want'. After thousands of demonstrations and a lot of work refining and perfecting the product into a complete system, the latest 4th generation Kreg Jig looks like this:

The plastic bits are actually glass reinforced nylon and are virtually indestructible, the frame can be clamped or screwed to a bench for producing components (as shown above) or you can use the integral clamp to fix it directly to the workpiece. For situations where you need to take the jig to the workpiece and space is limited (repair work for example) the drill guide block can be removed and installed in a Kreg portable base unit, which locates over the side of the workpiece and can be adjusted for material thickness by sliding the guide block in or out and securing it with the brass screw.

Once the pockets are formed the two pieces can be clamped in place (genuine Kreg clamps work perfectly but in a pinch you can get by with standard ones) and secured together with screws. There's no waiting for the glue to dry and once the screws are driven home the clamps can be removed and you are onto the next joint. While we are at this point, there would be no advantage in adding glue to this joint because you can't glue endgrain - hence it would traditionally be done with a mortice and tenon or half-lap joint which give large long-grain to long-grain contact surfaces

All Kreg products are solid, durable and robust, a result of the guy who invented the system and owns the company standing in front of his customers and selling it to them week in week out for years. The system is simple, fast, accurate and works beautifully. Whether you are making your first table and find traditional joinery a bit daunting, or a top designer-maker looking to improve the speed and efficiency of producing jigs and forms, Kreg pocket hole joinery may just be the answer.

For those that want more discrete pocket holes there is the Kreg Micro guide block, which simply replaces the guide block in the standard set up and produces 25% smaller pocket holes. Using the pan head screws the head of the screw is still fully concealed and the holes are plugable.

The next logical step is to go bigger, so for construction sized workpieces the new Kreg HD jig (announced earlier this week) is due to be launched this summer:

Wednesday, 16 May 2012

Last weekend I had the pleasure of becoming a new custodian of some very old skills, the honour of learning them from Oxfordshire Blacksmithing legend Clive Sanderson, and to top it all off, the privilege of working in a forge that dates back to 1790 and is now a scheduled ancient monument.

The intensive 2 day course covers the basic skills of traditional blacksmithing exactly as apprentices have learned them for centuries. Obviously you can't replace the hours of practice and opportunity to observe the master at work that you would get with a proper five year blacksmithing apprenticeship, but with 1 on 1 tuition and a little concentration it's surprising how much ground you can cover in a couple of days. Clive explained and demonstrated all of the following skills, which I then had plenty of time to practice on my own workpiece.

Fire management
Cutting and splitting
Forging to section (square, octagonal, round)
Drawing down and tapering
Upsetting or jumping up
Punching and drifting
Decorative Scroll work
Bolstering
Rivetting
We even managed to have a go at a bit of fire welding too.

Around the same time as I was born, Clive was starting his
apprenticeship in a village blacksmiths shop three miles down the road. By the time I could walk he was making money at it and by the time I could ride a bike he had served his apprenticeship and could call himself a blacksmith.

The techniques Clive teaches are absolutely traditional, they have been preserved and cherished since the iron age, like a living flame passed from one generation to the next. Clive's pride in these techniques is inspiring, and has made me want to produce what I believe to be a perfect result every single time I use them. I suppose this is the key to how craftsmanship gets passed down along with the skills.

The forge we were working in is part of Tooleys historic boatyard in Banbury. This little brick shed survived the wholesale redevelopment of the town centre ten years ago and it now sits rather incongruously among the mobile phone shops in the middle of the Castle Quay shopping centre. It isn't some touristy museum with a flickering orange lightbulb in the hearth and a recording of hammering to give it some atmosphere. It's a proper working forge, complete with heat, dirt and genuine expletives when someone is learning the hard way just how long metal stays hot.

By the end of the second day I had a new portfolio of comfortably understood blacksmithing skills and the confidence that I had used each of them at least once and achieved an acceptable result. I also had a rather special candlestick to show for my efforts which also serves as a permanent reminder of both the individual techniques and a deeply rewarding experience.